"Are you ready to have these babies?" D asked me the other night as we headed towards the 36th week.
Contractions were coming about every 20 minutes and I thought maybe - just maybe - we were on our way. "Yes," I told him. "I am so ready." I love the idea of meeting our new babies, hugging them, feeling their kicks on the outside instead of the inside. I love the idea of not having to lie on a table twice a week listening to the doppler-amplified sound of stampedes of horses. I am ready - so, so ready.
Except that we didn't yet have the carseats to bring the babies home and the cribs are in boxes in the garage, unassembled. "No biggie," I figured, "we can borrow carseats and put the cribs together last minute." I'm still shifting things around in the house. And there are still some projects I'd like to finish for clients - and some potential new clients to talk to while I am not totally sleep-deprived and have no screaming infants providing background noise. Are you ever really ready for the grand event?
I went to sleep that night and the contractions stopped. False labor. Ha! Can't fool me! I've been through this before - three times in fact. But that bout of contractions was not for nought. It drove the babies deeper into my pelvis. When I woke up that morning, my gait had become stilted.
Suddenly I can breathe without my asthma inhalers and my appetite has returned, although I don't know if that's good or bad. All the little annoyances that came from two babies being wedged between my diaphragm, lungs and stomach have disappeared - to be replaced by new ones as they dropped lower and lower.
Our hospital bags are now packed and I've found myself hedging when people try to make plans with me. I just don't know whether our lives will miraculously speed up, drag on or whether a medical event could summon us to the hospital immediately. It's a strange state of limbo. Yes, there is plenty to do - and no moss is growing under my feet. Today the movers shifted furniture around our home. Tomorrow the new refrigerator arrives. I have a to-do list of things I want to accomplish before I am tied to the house with two babies, hesitating to drag them out before we've established feeding, napping and other routines. Now is the time to fix things up, stockpile necessities that are hard to aquire, and complete the tasks I've begun.
So am I ready? The answer is yes - and no. Maybe not quite yet.